TFF - Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Different seasons always put me in the mood for different foods. I think this is probably true for anyone. For example, the moment the temperatures start to drop in the fall, I want soup. And in the dead of winter, the only thing on my table is hearty, hunterscomeinoutofthecold food, like sauerbraten, braised beef, and chicken and noodles.

Likewise, when the sun starts spending more time in the sky, I start to crave vegetables, sweet corn is a big one. But when Mother Nature really turns up the heat, and its just almost too hot to eat, let alone heat the house up for the sake of cooking, I want SALSA. Chop up some nice tomatoes, chiles, cilantro and onion, and tear open a bag of tortilla chips and I don't need anything else to eat. I could live on chips and salsa in the summertime. Salsa Fresca, Pico de Gallo, fruity Peach or Mango salsa, burn-the-hairs-right-out-of-your-nose HOT salsa, doesn't matter to me. As long as there is a lot of flavor. I like my food to be a mouthful of flavors fighting for control of my tastebuds. Sweet, Sour, Tart, Hot, Savory....I want it all.

My taste buds would like to personally thank Tyler Florence for making their day.

Have you ever had a tomatillo? You know, those weird looking little things that resemble small green tomatoes, but have a paper husk around them? No? Well, you SHOULD. And there will never be a better time than now. I have always loved them, because they are little powerhouses of flavor. Tart and pungent, they make my mouth happy. You can use them raw (after peeling and rinsing, of course), or you can do like Tyler does, and roast them.

I know, I know, I just made a big speech about not heating up the house for the sake of cooking, but you can do this in the morning when its cool (which is what I did), and then enjoy the fruits of your labor later on.

In Tyler's book, he recommends serving it with his Chiles Rellenos. (I am SO sorry, I can't remember which book this is in. I am fairly sure its in Eat This Book, but it may also be Stirring the Pot. When I get back home, I'll double check and post a comment!) I am a personal believer, however, that this is a standalone dish that is perfectly good just scooped up in a chip. Not to belittle Tyler's suggestion, I did decide to pair it up with another food. See, I recently roasted a whole ton of chicken pieces and had about half of that amount leftover.....hmmm what else do I have in quantity in my fridge? Yep! Corn! Let's see, what else is in here.....tortillas......queso fresco.....and cotija cheese.... Yeah, this will work!!! Here's what I did:

Shred some leftover roasted, baked, fried or rotisserie chicken. Whatever you've got handy.

In a baking dish (or you could do this on your grill to keep the house cool, if your husband wasn't a slacker who had yet to pick out his new grill...) put some shredded chicken on one side of a tortilla, top with some grated or sliced queso fresco. Scatter with some corn (cut off the cob, of course!) and fold the tortilla over.

Bake in the oven at 350 (ish) until the cheese is melty.

Remove from the oven and top with Roasted Tomatillo Salsa and a little Cotija cheese.

Ok, you're going to have to excuse me for a moment....

If I smoked, I'd probably have to light up right now....

Please, please, PLEASE try this at home.

My tastebuds would give Tyler a standing ovation right now if they could....

The corn added a nice little bit of crunch, and the queso fresco is so creamy, it played against the bite of the salsa. When I made the salsa, I used some hot chiles (I think they were serranos) instead of jalapenos, and admittedly, I used more than he suggests....but hey, I'm a chili-head, you should know this about me by now. I also probably used more cilantro than the recipe called for, but again, that's standard operating procedure at my house, too.

If you were paying close attention, you noticed that some of the quesadillas had corn and some didn't. That's because this was SO good, I made more last night but I was out of corn. That's actually THREE times this week that I've eaten them...and I have more packed for my lunch at work today.

So, really, this recipe couldn't be easier, and now that I know it is this good, I'll be making another batch just as soon as I can get my hands on some more tomatillos, and I'm going to freeze jars of it for later! I really hope you do try this...I think it is the perfect summer food. I'm wondering how I could work it into a marinade for chicken or pork and then grill that up.....hmmm....you might be seeing THAT post soon, too!

Happy Summer, everyone! Its half over, so start enjoying it!

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 jalapeño, split down the middle

1 small spanish onion, sliced

4 garlic cloves

extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

½ bunch fresh cilantro

2 limes, juice only

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
On a roasting tray, arrange tomatillos, jalapeño, onion and garlic. Drizzle with a 3-count of oil (about 3 tablespoons) and season with salt.Roast for 10-12 minutes, until tomatillos are tender and slightly blistered.Put the cooked vegetables in a blender with the cilantro and lime juice.Pour in oil and process until you have a smooth puree (be careful when you process the hot vegetables in the blender; hold down the lid with a kitchen towel over the top). Taste and, if desired, adjust the seasoning with extra lime juice or salt according to preference.

In all seriousness, people, this may be my new favorite summer dish. I still have more in the fridge, and I'm already planning another batch as soon as I can get my hands on some more tomatillos. The great news about this is that it doesn't even have to be a "summer" dish. If you live near a big enough store, tomatillos are available year round. You can make this as mild or as hot as you want, since the tomatilos are full of flavor, but not heat. The heat is based solely on the variety and quantity of the chiles you use.

In case you missed the point of this, this is most definitely my submission for Tyler Florence Fridays this week. Please stop by tomorrow afternoon to check out the roundup!

Well, I'm signing off for the week. Ginny is coming out tomorrow evening and we've got another cooking class on our agenda this weekend, and I'm taking Ty to the county fair tonight, so I hope to have lots of great pictures for you next week. Have a great weekend, everyone!!!

Daffy Duck is Coming to Dinner.....

When I think of duck (not 'ducks', but DUCK) I always think of the fancy duck breast you might order in an upscale restaurant with the pretty little criss-cross cuts in the layer of fat on the breast.

That is SO not what happened in my kitchen when I made duck for the first time.

First of all, where do you buy duck when you don't live in a big city? I'll tell you where. You gotta know a guy. And, as luck has it, I do. For once, I was appreciative of the fact that I have so many hunters in my circle of friends. And, just by chance, when Ginny announced that we needed to make this recipe a few weeks before her visit, it was duck and goose season in Illinois.

There are some things you should know about duck. First of all, wild duck are much smaller than domesticated duck. The recipe called for two to three pounds of thighs only. If we had done that with the wild ducks, we would have needed about ten of them! Those little thighs were so tiny, they were practically worthless. Those ducks had to have been the size of Daffy himself to yield that kind of meat. SO, instead, we used four whole ducks. Also, when you buy duck in the store, it comes with the skin and fat still on. Well, I have been informed that its a big ol' pain in the hunter's ass to scald the ducks, then pluck the feathers in order to leave all of that intact. So I told the guys not to worry about it, I figured for this recipe, we didn't really need the skin or extra fat either, because, as you will soon see, there is plenty of fat in this recipe already.

Let's talk about lard for a moment, m'kay? If there is one thing I have discovered about life in the country, it is that I have gotten used to buying large quantities of beef and pork directly from the butcher, along with all the unusual parts and bi-products that go along with it. Such as lard. About every other time we buy a hog, we generally have the lard rendered at the same time. That is an optional step, but I like having the lard for biscuits, etc, so we have it done. I don't use a lot of lard in my cooking, so we don't get it done every time. Well, we haven't bought a hog for awhile, and the last time we did, I didn't have the lard rendered, so my supply of lard was less than fresh, and frankly, may have been a tad questionable. So, I went in search of new lard. My first thought was to call the meat locker. Chances are, if someone was having a hog processed and didn't want their lard, I could ask to have it rendered and pay that part of the processing. Unfortunately, that was not an available option at the time I was looking for it. Now, if you don't buy a whole hog at once, or you live in a city and don't have ready access to lard, your choices are much more limited, and that's what I ended up having to resort to. Running to the local Walmart and buying a tub of Manteca, which is just over-processed, flavorless lard that you can find in the latin food section. The lard you get from the locker actually smells and tastes like it is a pork product instead of a close cousin of candle wax. But I digress.

Just so you know, this is what six cups of lard looks like. Yikes! That's how much the recipe says to use for baking the duck.Ok, moving on, here is the recipe, with my cooking notes.

Notes:
As tasty as this dish was, it was NOT worth the work involved. It was really good, don't get me wrong, but I would have been just as satisfied with a chunk of pork that I didn't have to bone out, or, for that matter, go into negotiations with a backwoods duck hunter for my dinner. Also, I can't say that I feel the process of baking the duck in lard really made any huge difference in the dish. Granted, I didn't try making it without that step, but I just really didn't find any obvious tastes or textures related to that. Aside from which, the two hours the duck spent in that lard, in my new oven, kind of made my house smell like ass. Yes, it really did. And it clung to the walls, unwilling to relinquish its hold on my house....lingering for DAYS.

So yes, the dish was good, and we still love Rick Bayless. However, if I chose to make this dish again, I think I'd just use pork. One thing to remember though, is that the Crunchy Tomatillo Avocado Salsa totally made this dish. Do not skip out on it, thinking that you could just substitute some store bought salsa. No. Absolutely not. MAKE the salsa. Put it on the duck. Put it on some chips. Hell, put it on the bumper of your car - it would still taste fantastic! Even if you DON'T make the duck (and I'm pretty sure you won't), DO make the salsa. It was amazing. Unfortunately, the only picture you're going to see of the salsa is in the corner of the picture with the carnitas. Why? Because we scarfed it down like we were dying of thirst and it was the only water in the desert. Yep, it was that good.

Overall, I am glad we made the dish. Again, I'm not convinced it was worth the effort, but it was definitely a learning process, and a good meal!Duck Carnitas

(Carnitas de Pato)
Makes 3 generous cups of coarsely shredded carnitas
Recipe from Season 7 of Mexico - One Plate at a Time

Ingredients
6 large duck legs (you need 2 1/2 to 3 pounds total)

4 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons dried oregano, preferably Mexican

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

6 cups fresh, rich-tasting pork lard

8 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

Crunchy Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa (see recipe below)

Directions
1. Marinate the duck. Lay the duck legs in a 13 x 9-inch non-aluminum baking dish. Sprinkle with half the salt and oregano, then drizzle with half the lime juice. Flip them over and sprinkle with the remaining salt and oregano; drizzle with the remaining lime. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours, turning a couple of times.

2. Cook the duck. Heat the oven to 300 degrees. In a large (4-quart) saucepan, melt the lard. Remove the duck from the baking dish and pat dry on paper towels. Rinse and dry the baking dish. Fit in the duck legs. Pour the lard over the duck, making sure the legs are completely submerged. Scatter the garlic cloves over the duck legs and nestle them into the lard. Slide into the oven (you may want to do this on a rimmed baking sheet to avoid spills), and bake for about 2 hours until the duck is very tender. Cool to lukewarm.

3. Serve the duck carnitas. Remove the duck from the lard. Pull off the skin and set aside. Pull the meat from the bone into large pieces. Discard the bones. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the lard into a very large (12-inch) skillet (preferably nonstick) and set over medium-high. When hot, lay in the skin and cook, turning frequently, until very crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove to a drain on paper towels. Add the meat and cook, turning regularly, until browned and crisping in spots, about 7 or 8 minutes Scoop into a serving platter. Coarsely crumble the duck skin over the top and serve with the Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa and warm tortillas.

Crunchy Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa

(Salsa Verde Crujiente con Aguacate)

Makes about 2 1/2 cups

Recipe from Season 7 of Mexico - One Plate at a Time

Ingredients

8 ounces (about 4 medium) tomatillos, husked and rinsed

1/2 cup (loosely packed) coarsely chopped cilantro

Hot green chiles to taste (roughly 2 small serranos or 1 small jalapeño), stemmed and roughly chopped

1 ripe avocado, pitted, flesh scooped from the skin

1 small white onion, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

Salt

Directions

Roughly chop half of the tomatillos and scoop them into a food processor with the cilantro and green chiles. Measure in 1/4 cup water and process to a slushy, coarse puree. Roughly chop half the avocado, add it to the processor and pulse until it is incorporated into the salsa. Scrape into a serving dish. Scoop the onion into a small strainer and rinse under cold water. Add to the salsa. Finely chop the remaining tomatillos and add them, too. Finally, chop the remaining avocado into 1/4-inch pieces and stir them into the salsa. Taste and season with salt, usually about 3/4 teaspoon. Alternative Method: Put all the tomatillos (quartered), cilantro and chiles through a meat grinder to chop them (no water necessary), then stir in finely chopped avocado and rinsed onion.

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

Yes, life can be like a bowl full of cherries, but in this case, there are no pits! What am I talking about? In this case I am talking about an adorable little fruit that I have heard of, but until recently, had never seen.

The Ground Cherry.

On a recent visit to my local farmers market, I ran across a vendor I hadn’t seen there before, and was delighted to find some offbeat selections, as well as handmade pottery. What really caught my eye were several little pint baskets marked “Ground Cherries”. When I inquired about them, the vendor quickly offered me one to try. Tiny little yellow fruits, encased in a papery husk (as seen in this blog post), similar to that of a tomatillo, produce a flavor that to me was nearly a cross between a cherry and a tomato. It was a very unusual but mild flavor that quickly had me wanting more.

Unfortunately, although I kept returning to the market, the vendor did not. See, they aren’t regulars at our market, and I can’t say as I blame them, because there is a much greater venue for them about an hour south of us in Edwardsville. Lucky for me, though, Nathan and Amy (of 2 Acre Farm) had given me their contact info (and blog address – woo hoo!) and I was able to track them down and get several more pints from them so I could make a batch of jam.

I had already shipped my box for the Jam Exchange at the time, so I didn’t get to include a jar of this, although I would have loved to, but Ginny and I had fun making it while I was in Iowa visiting her last weekend.

We husked all the cherries, and then used the recipe that Nathan included with my cherries, although we had to adjust a little for a slightly larger quantity of fruit, hence a slightly longer boiling time.

The end result was a wonderfully tangy jam that I am looking forward to having on biscuits for breakfast this winter. I’ll definitely be looking for these again next year!

Check out 2 Acre Farm’s blog and see all the great stuff they’ve been growing this year!

Ground Cherry Jam

3 cups ripe ground cherries

¼ cup lemon juice

½ cup water

1 package Sure-Jel

3 cups sugar

In a large saucepan, add ground cherries, lemon, water, and Sure-Jel.

Bring cherries to a boil and mash them.

Be sure they are all mashed so that they will absorb the sugar. Add the sugar, then return to a boil and continue boiling up to 8 minutes, or until the mixture gels using a cold plate to test it.

Makes 4 half pint jars.

Tyler Florence - and a Giveaway!

Happy Monday, everyone!!! I have very exciting news for you. If you have not been keeping up with the Tyler Florence Fridays roundups, where I and a number of other people contribute dishes we have created each week, then you have missed out! Aside from the fact that each Friday you get to see dishes made by some wonderful home cooks based on Tyler Florence's recipes, they have joined forces with Tyler Florence to choose their pick for "best dish" each week, and the winning post will appear on Tyler's own blog that week.

Well, guess what? This week, I won! That's right, as soon as Tyler's people have the site updated, you will see my lovely Roasted Tomatillo Salsa right there on Tyler's blog! I could not be more excited. Be sure to keep checking back to see him link to this blog soon!

SO! Since I am still riding the high from Friday, and I have been looking for an excuse to do this for a while now, I've decided to have my very first blog giveaway! I'm not going to make it easy on you though, you're going to have to do more than comment to get entered. I thought since I just won a little prize based on my own creation, I'm going to do the same for this giveaway.

Here's the scoop. My very dear friend Tracy is having a baby in November and I will be helping throw her a baby shower. At another shower I helped out with awhile back, I made this cute little veggie "garden" that everyone just raved about.I, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointed because I really had hoped that my "flowers" would have been prettier or more creative. Well, for Tracy's shower I want to do better! And I need your help! You have two weeks, people. Here's what I am asking for.

• Come up with one creative flower (or another item that could be considered part of a garden) made of vegetables and send me a picture of it. You have until next Friday, August 7th, and I will let my Little Man (he doesn't know you, so he can't be biased) pick his favorite from the entries submitted, with the winner to be announced on Monday, August 10th.

SO, now you want to know what the prize is, right? How about this:

Yes, this is new in the box, a Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker in their signature Cranberry color.

You know you want it, don't you? This item retails at $69 (I know Donna loves that!) and it is a heck of a time saver. You can use this to cook things in the microwave that you would normally have to heat the whole house up for by using the oven. What a perfect kitchen gadget for summer!

So come on now, get your thinking caps on and come up with something good! (and no, I don't want to see links or pictures from the Internet...I want to see your own personal creations!

Ready, set, GO!

Tyler Florence Fridays - Farewell Roundup

Sitting back, remembering all the fun I had making dishes to submit to Tyler Florence Fridays, I felt like taking a look back at all the mouth watering recipes I put together. I thought as one final "hurrah!" for TFF, I'd do a little roundup of my own, showcasing all the best pictures of those recipes and links to each of the posts. I did have a few other Tyler Florence recipes thrown in here and there, but these are the ones I actually submitted to the weekly roundups. I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have! Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Tolan's Pregnancy Pasta
This was my first entry to TFF, and it was so good, you could really say it got the ball rolling!

Arborio Rice PuddingRice pudding has long been a favorite dessert of mine, and this one did not disappoint.Braised Beef Brisket I had never made a brisket before and I admit it was a little intimidating, especially when I always thought of brisket as a cut that you smoke not roast. It turned out better than I could have imagined.Garlic and Herb Roast Lobster This was by far the most interesting entry I made. I do love some lobster, and for this one I was willing to butcher it myself! You can tell by the awful shadows that this was still before I built myself a light box.Penne with Spicy Italian Sausage One of the easiest recipes ever, and a big hit with the hubs!Baked Lime Pudding Cakes A fun twist on Tyler's recipe.Perfect Roast Chicken A classic menu item that in all my years of cooking and experimenting, I had never attempted. It was fantastic!Salt Crusted Porterhouse This one was for my husband. A special treat after a rough week.Thai Grilled Beef These little babies packed a punch! What a great treat for a summer evening.Roasted Tomatillo Salsa This salsa was the post that got me on Tyler's own blog! Just look at that gorgeous green!Greek Yogurt with Fig and Honey, Date and Honey Swirl Ginny and I made this one during one of her visits and it is still a favorite. What a rich little indulgence.Grilled Cheese (Smoked Mozzarella and Basil Pesto)and Roasted Tomato Soup with Fresh Basil These recipes were both good, although neither one blew me away.Grilled Honey Teriyaki Chicken Another success on the grill! For this one, I took over control of the "man zone" and wielded the tongs myself!French Onion Soup Possibly my all time favorite soup. What a great cool weather dish.Asian Egg Drop Soup Another recipe that definitely didn't rock my world, but we jazzed it up and turned it into something fabulous.Pasta Carbonara And finally, we're back to the beginning again with Pasta Carbonara revisited. We put a different twist on it and enjoyed it all over again. We came full circle!

I had a great time making all of these great recipes, and I can't wait to move on as a part of I Heart Cooking Clubs, and Cook the Books. I am looking forward to trying lots of great new dishes and sharing them with you! I hope you'll join me in the fun!